Division of O&G approves lease assignment to Cade and Donkel

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

In a Dec. 26 decision, Nottingham said applications were received Nov. 10 to transfer working interests in the lease from J. Andrew Bachner and Keith C. Forsgren to Samuel H. Cade and Daniel K. Donkel.

The division's most recent North Slope lease ownership map, dated September, shows the lease as the only non-Cade/Donkel lease in a block at the eastern edge of state acreage offshore the North Slope.

When the division approved unit formation for Cade/Donkel's Greater Point Thomson unit last June, ADL 393574 was excluded from the lease approval. The application had been for 58,790 acres, but the state approved the unit at only 35,122 acres, excluding unleased state lands, leases where "geophysical analysis does not show the presence of a hydrocarbon reservoir or potential hydrocarbon accumulation" and Backner/Forsgren acreage. The Backner/Forsgren acreage was excluded, Nottingham said in that decision, because those parties had not ratified the proposed Greater Point Thomson unit agreement or the unit operating agreement.

--KRISTEN NELSON